Archive for the ‘Lindholm Volkswagen’ tag

Pretty much since the beginning of the automobile business, there have been dealership rows in pretty much every town across America. Whatever the reason – zoning, ease of comparison shopping, local culture – auto dealerships tended to clump together. With widescale suburbanization and gentrification over the last few decades, the dealership row has morphed into the automall, a chain of mega-dealerships all owned by one person and strung together.

To get a sense of how dealership rows looked before the automall, however, let’s turn to this group of photos found on the University of Vermont’s Landscape Change Program online photo archives. For some reason (tax assessment? newspaper story about the impending widening of the road?), somebody went through and documented Rutland, Vermont’s, dealership row, located along U.S. Route 7 north of Randbury Street. It likely wasn’t the only section of town that housed automobile dealerships, but in this short stretch we see four new car dealerships advertising seven brands, along with two used car dealerships.

At the south end of the row, at the corner of Randbury and U.S. 7 (287 South Main Street), we see Lindholm Volkswagen. Founded by Frank Lindholm in 1947, Lindholm Motors became the first Volkswagen franchise in Vermont in 1955. We see references to it remaining a Volkswagen dealer through 1975 and believe it may have somehow morphed into Kinney Subaru, which occupies the building today.

Next up, on the same side of the street, we see Shortle Motors, which advertised Jeep, Renault, Peugeot, and Willys products, along with used cars. Owned by Charles and Joan Shortle, it apparently at one point held a Subaru franchise, presumably before Lindholm became Kinney. Rutland Motorcars, a collector car dealer, occupies that spot now, and it appears Shortle’s building is now Rutland Motorcars’ main building.

Again on the same side of the street, Stowell Chevrolet sold Chevrolets and used cars and claimed itself “Vermont’s Largest Chevrolet Dealer.” We see reference to the dealership existing as early as 1952. Stewart Smith bought it sometime later, turned it into a Buick-GMC dealership (also selling BMWs at one point), then sold it in 1988 to Shirley and Joe Barnhart, who continued to operate it as a Buick-GMC-Pontiac dealership.

Finally, across the street from Stowell, lies Killington Motors, which offered Dodges and Oldsmobiles. We’ve been unable to dig up any information at all on this dealership, but we can confirm that the building still stands and today houses a U-Haul franchise.